Quick Buttercream Frosting

My favorite frosting is Swiss Meringue Buttercream. It’s velvety smooth and beautifully balanced – if you ever find yourself craving a frosting that’s not “too sweet,” that’s the one you want to make. Swiss Meringue Buttercream can be a tad fickle – I’ve had frosting that comes together in perfect time and then I’ve had frosting that I’ve had to beat for 25+ minutes before it “came back.” So when I don’t want to fuss with the egg whites, I reach for this recipe.

It’s your standard American-style buttercream: butter and powdered sugar, whipped together with flavorings. Simple, pretty standard, yet I get a ton of compliments and requests for the recipe all the time. I used it to frost the cupcakes for The Foodie Baby’s 1st birthday party. She’s a huge fan. And so were several of our guests.

Dress the frosting up with food coloring or leave it white. If I’m not coloring the frosting, I’ll add the scrapings of a vanilla bean pod. I’m a firm believer that those little flecks of vanilla bean make every vanilla dessert taste better – and even if it’s all in my head, it definitely looks like it should taste better!

Quick Buttercream Frosting

A deliciously creamy American-style buttercream frosting.

Ingredients

2 stick of butter, at room temp

6 cups powdered sugar

5 Tbsp milk*

2 tsp vanilla extract*

1/4 tsp almond extract

pinch of salt

1 vanilla bean pod, optional

a few drops of food coloring, optional

Instead of milk and vanilla, a fresh fruit puree (like strawberries) works great.

Instructions

Place all ingredients in your mixer bowl. Beat on low just until you have no more dry streaks of powdered sugar. (Add a bit of food coloring/gel here, if using. If using a vanilla bean, split the pod in half, scrape with the edge of your knife, and add the scrapings to the mixer bowl.)

Turn to high and whip for 3-4 minutes, until light, fluffy, and smooth, stopping once to scrape down the sides.

Transfer to a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip (I use a Wilton 1M).

Extra frosting can be stored in the fridge for quite a while. Bring to room temp and whip for a couple of minutes before using.

Pretty, pretty! I love the colors you chose! This is very similar to the simple buttercream recipe I use, except mine uses some shortening. I prefer Swiss meringue buttercream as well, but every now and then you want something quick, easy, and tasty

I like swiss meringue better as well…so long as I convince myself that it doesn’t actually have a pound of butter in it…that’s really it’s only downfall. This sounds like a great recipe to have in your arsenal!

I’ve been trying to construct a cream soda-flavored icing for a cupcake I’ve been dreaming up, and haven’t been able to find one. I was wondering if you thought this buttercream could be adapted to incorporate cream soda? I was thinking something along the lines of letting the soda flatten out a little bit to have a more workable consistency, and using it to replace some of the milk and extracts.

Have you seen cream soda extract? They sell it at the beer & wine supply store where we get all our homebrew goodies and I bet you can get it online, too. Using the extract would get more of the cream soda flavor into the frosting than using actual cream soda.

Thank you for such an easy and reliable frosting recipe! After a different recipe failed with only hours until the party I was frosting a cake for, I turned to this recipe and it worked perfectly. Thanks also for the great blog!

My search for the PERFECT Buttercream is finally over! I made this to frost some vanilla cupcakes for my son’s 2nd birthday party and not only is this a cinch to throw together and makes plenty of frosting, but it’s fabulous to work with, the texture is great, and most importantly it tastes FANTASTIC! Just the perfect balance of butter and sugar and vanilla flavor! I’ve found most Buttercreams to be either too buttery or too sugary, but this one is spot on! Really fabulous, and everyone really enjoyed it. I will absolutely be making this recipe again and again. Thank you so much for sharing the recipe!

I love the sound of this frosting and your natural strawberry cake. I’m going to make both of them for my son’s birthday this week. Do I need to increase this at all or will this make enough for a layer cake?

Bummer. Just came out of the oven with flat middles. No one jumping. No earthquake. Did use 4 regular eggs instead of 6 whites, and substituted 1/4 greek yogurt for 1/4 cup milk (and combined with 1/4 milk), which I do for many of my cake recipes without problem. Will be a wonky birthday cake! But hopefully will taste good.

I tried to make rosettes on a cake with this icing. I followed recipe perfectly, so trying to figure out where I went wrong. My roses were falling down :/ It still looks pretty though. I’m thinking I made the roses too small for the tip that I used, so I only should have done one layer of roses, and then roses on top. I did two layers. Not sure if that would have made a difference. The consistency was not thick enough ..I don’t think.